singillatim | in lieu of beach (open)

Entry tags:

in lieu of beach (open)

Who: Ken & OPEN.
What: Skatin' on the basin.
When: Early November, daylight hours only !!!
Where: The basin.

Content Warnings: Good old fashioned FUN. Do not come here if you don't want to smile and laugh.

( when life gives you lemons, you ice skate )

Ken really doesn't go anywhere without his rollerblades. He'd found them here, tucked away in the back of the closet at the Mojo Snowjo Casa Dreamhouse, and had been delighted. Until he remembered that he couldn't really use them here with all the snow, and that it's not safe to rollerblade without knee pads and elbow pads. The whole thing had left him a little bummed until, one day picking through one of the stores, he came across ice skates.

That's almost like rollerblading and just as fun.

On a day where the wind's pretty calm and the sun is shining, Ken and the skates make their way to the frozen basin. Luckily, March taught him how to tie laces pretty early on after arriving, so Ken doesn't have too many problems getting the skates tied up nice and snug. Anyone who might be down in that area of Milton will have no problem spotting him, skating around the frozen surface as if they're not all stuck in a wasteland that's trying to kill them at every turn. When he spots you, he waves, motioning for you to come out on to the ice whether you have skates or not. And if you don't, well, he'll just skate back to the edge of the basin to talk to you, instead.

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Edward knows his limits. He might be quick on his feet, agile for his age, but even he would turn into a clumsy newborn foal on the ice without the proper shoes for it. So when Ken beckons him closer, he shakes his head with a wry smile.

"I'm a little too old to be tripping and falling through the ice," he says, as though he hasn't been running around Milton's rooftops, spry as ever. "Good to see you're enjoying yourself, though."

Ken at least has the decency of skating closer, and he gives a bit of a laugh and a shrug.

"Now that the scary ghosts are gone, it's nice to do something fun."

"They weren't that scary," says Edward, although he supposes to somebody who's not so used to watching people die they would be. "I thought they were just sad. But you're right that it's nice to just enjoy some leisure."

He moves to sit on some rock that's just big enough for a man to sit on without the seat of his pants touching the snow, and watches Ken skate around on the ice. "I never did find the time to learn how to skate like that," he says, ruefully. First he'd been too poor to try an activity typically reserved for the richer folk, then once he'd gotten rich enough to do so he'd been too busy. "But my daughter used to skate circles around me, when she was young."

"They were very scary," Ken replies, matter-of-factly.

But it doesn't matter, because Edward gives Ken a fantastic idea, and it's evident in the way his face lights up.

"You have time now! There's gotta be more skates around town, and it's super easy to learn. And it's fun."

"We'll just agree to disagree," says Edward, because this is not a hill he wants to die on. He already died once anyway back in England, and it would be embarrassing to die to Ken of all people.

He pauses, clearly mulling this over. "Why not," he decides, at last. "It'll be nice to learn something new." He pushes some stray strands of hair behind his ear as he stands, and he adds, "But I warn you, I'm not as spry as I used to be when I was younger." This, coming from the same man who regularly runs around on the rooftops of Milton like they're his personal playground. "You'll need to teach me how to move on the ice."

The man who takes notice of the figure skating around on the ice likely couldn't be any more opposite from him. Dressed very formally, in the long uniformed greatcoat and officer's cap of the Royal Navy, the lieutenant stands there with a shotgun strapped to his back and a distinct atmosphere of severity about him. He's very no-nonsense... and has absolutely never ice-skated in his entire life. (Granted, where and when he's from, it's still a fairly new novelty to make a trend.)

He'd been making his rounds, and those often include the basin which he makes a point to look around at times. It's rare he actually comes across another person out here in the empty white, and so Edward's staring over that way as he slowly approaches, carefully stepping across the snow until he arrives at the basin's edge. He stands there watching the young blonde man gliding across the ice, waiting at the edge when the other man comes to meet him there.

The lieutenant reaches up with a gloved hand to touch the rim of his cap and nods in polite, formal greeting. His accent is Extremely British — richly toned and even, and though he's not unfriendly, he's certainly very serious about things. "Good day."

Ken has a hat too, even if it's just a knit beanie pulled down over his ears, so he mimics the greeting as best he can by touching his hand to the band of the cap.

"Good day to you."

He doesn't, at least, try to mimic the accent.

The knit hat upon the other man's head is a bit different, but similar enough to, the Welsh wigs that Edward's familiar with, so he's assuming that's what it is. It's not typical that someone would greet so formally with those on, but nearly everything about this entire situation they're in is strange, and, well, it's no harm done.

So Edward gives a faint thing that might actually be a smile, though concern for the man is soon outweighing everything, and he looks past the man out to the ice he'd just been skating on.

"I hadn't realised people were using the ice for recreation. Are you quite certain it's safe?"

Ken looks around, too, squinting a bit as the sun glints off the snow, then back at the other man.

"What else do you use ice for?"

He's not purposely ignoring the safety question, it's just that one thing seems more important to Ken at the moment than the other.

Edward stares at the ice for a few moments longer as that question lingers. The patch of ice of the Basin is large, but compared to what he'd known, seems so very small. One can see the beginning and end of that patch. A contained thing.

The ice he and his men had been trapped on for all those years was nothing like that. It was... endless. It was an abyss.

He blinks, looking back to the other man as he tries to bring himself out of his odd daze of thoughts and the way his stomach feels tight and ill.

"I suppose... fishing." Edward pauses as he tries to give the man a serious answer, really putting a lot of earnest thought into it.... "There isn't much else use for it. ...But you could fall in. Is it very thick, out there?"

Levi honestly doesn't get down to the basin that often, maybe once every week or two, but as luck would have it he makes his way down there while Ken is skating. He has no idea what ice skating is, though, so he just moves to the edge of the ice and watches Ken. Just what was going on?

Ken recognizes Levi and waves at him, easily skating up to the edge to him.

"Hi! How's it going?"

It's nice to see people when you're not being chased by scary wolves.

"Uh, fine." For this place. "What are you doing?"

"Skating."

Obviously.

"Do you skate? We should find you a pair for next time."

"Skating?" On the ice? He's never heard of that, but he guesses most ice he's seen wasn't really thick enough to go out on. "Um, no...I didn't know you could skate on ice."

Ken's skates seemed to lack wheels, though...were those blades on them instead? Huh.

"Well. You can."

Obviously, because Ken's doing it. Except now he has a mission to find skates for Levi, so he goes over to where his boots are and sits down, changing from skates to boots.

"Usually I rollerblade. Not on the ice."

"I've skated before...but it was a long time ago. I don't think it was too hard..."

Of course rollerblades weren't a thing, so he just used normal skates. Those are much easier to balance on. He's not so sure about the knives under Ken's boots.

Vash's attempts at learning how to (ice-)fish have not been going all that well. Yet despite that he finds himself coming back to the basin to occasionally try anyway. Practice makes perfect, right? Or so he tells himself. He could certainly use the fish now that there are more mouths to feed at the church. Still, perhaps it's a small mercy that he gets distracted before he can ever start another futile attempt. On his way to the shack to get supplies, his attention gets snared by the figure gliding across the ice where it remains. Captivated by the sight as only someone who's never seen such a thing can be, he's drawn closer to the edge to watch and to offer delighted applause at particularly impressive turns.

The wave he gets when noticed is returned with eager friendliness, but the beckoning has him hesitating and dithering on the spot for the briefest of moments. He's learned the hard way that ice is as treacherous as quicksand. Knowing that the ice here is strong enough that the cold abyss it covers won't swallow him up at only the slightest wrong move, he decides to take his chances though. A few tentative steps carry him away from the safety of land and onto the slippery surface.

"Hello—"

He calls out before he's promptly cut off because the second his steps become more confident, he's punished for his hubris. Whatever he meant to say is replaced by a "WAUGH!" as his foot slips and one leg goes sliding out from under him. Unfortunately, the frantic pinwheeling of his arms doesn't keep him from spectacularly falling onto his ass and skidding a few inches along the ice in an ungraceful heap.

Oops. At least he did manage to come closer?

"-Oh!"

Ken tries to hustle over, though there's no way he can stop the wipe out. He does wince, though, and once he's close enough he holds out his hands to offer some help up.

"I've done that a lot, too. There's not a lot of snow or ice where I'm from."

"Thank you."

Vash laughs sheepishly in embarrassment as he accepts the offered hands, gingerly getting back on his feet while doing his best not to accidentally drag his helper down with him or to immediately fall over again. He manages to stand again, wincing at his now sore behind, but he's quickly distracted from the aftermath of his unfortunate tumble.

"Really? I would never be able to tell, you move so well on the ice! I'd never even seen snow or ice before I got here, it takes a little getting used to."

Which probably explains his awkward deer-on-ice stance.

Ken blushes a bit at the compliment, visible even under the pink in his cheeks from the cold.

"Well, you know, it's just something I can do."

After all, there's the ski hill in Barbieland that has a little pond for skating, and there's an indoor ice rink, too, where the Barbieland hockey team and figure skaters can practice.

"It's easy to learn."

The obvious fluster is endearing and makes Vash smile all the more. Perhaps it's a common skill for those who have access to ice, but that doesn't make it any less impressive to Vash.

"Is it? It looks difficult to me, especially on those."

He's nodding down towards the ice-skates, his expression turning somewhat dubious as he sees just how thin the blades are up close. Even just staying upright and standing is hard enough without having to balance on top of blades, much less moving so gracefully.

"I can't even walk properly here on regular boots!"

Obviously.

[ keith doesn't make a habit of venturing down to the basin often -- not after his near-fatal encounter with that monster a couple of weeks ago. not because he's afraid, exactly, but because it's unbelievably embarrassing that he almost became a victim of that thing in the first place.

but when a set of rabbit tracks leads down toward the lake, keith gives himself a mental kick and pursues. food is food and all that. nevertheless, he freezes when he spots a figure on the lake, and only relaxes again when he realizes that it'd be fucking weird for a monster to be ice skating of all things. certainly helps that the guy seems vaguely familiar -- like he might have seen the dude around town.

puffing out a heavy exhale, keith comes closer to the edge of the lake and calls out: ]

You probably shouldn't be out here alone, you know?

You're out here alone!

( Ken feels like he should point out the obvious. He skates his way closer and adjusts his hat a bit. )

But now we're not alone, we're together.

....

[ okay, so ken might have a valid point there, but keithis still gonna give him a raised eyebrow. ]

I'm not alone. I've got my knife.

[ don't question this flawless logic kthx. ]

There was a monster out here not that long ago. You got something to protect yourself with?

( Ken looks at Keith for a moment, then looks down at his skates, each one with its own knife-like blade on the bottom. )

I've got two knives.

It's days like this when he misses the desert - a funny thing to say, probably, considering that it comes with its own share of extreme weather conditions - but probably what Vash misses is the familiarity of it; the brightness of the twin suns, the way shifting golden sands glance off the light. The way heat blows over the dunes in the morning. Even the way the snow crunches underfoot is different to sand and Vash keep having to catch himself oddly, putting his weight where he isn't supposed to, and correcting his gait.

So, really, he shouldn't even be getting on the ice in the first place if he can't even walk properly on (semi)solid ground - but nobody said Vash ever made good decisions. At first, he thinks it's a trick of the light. Surely nobody can be out in the middle of the lake like this. And what were they doing?

"Who?"

Vash looks around, then back at the waving figure, as though anyone else would be out here at this time of the day. "... You mean me?"

"Yeah!"

Ken waves again, but he does make his way closer to the stranger, a bright smile on his face despite the chill in the air. The skating helps to warm him up.

"You don't need skates to just shuffle around."

Vash is going to shuffle a little closer to the edge of the lake, before he stops to eye the murky frozen depths of the ice a little dubiously. Clearly it seems like it's enough to hold Ken's weight, but honestly you never know what would happen. He can't even swim he would sink immediately like a rock??

"Um, are you sure that it's ... safe?"

He cuts himself off with a bashful, embarrassed sort of laugh. "Sorry, it's just my first time seeing something like this ... You make it look really easy!"

"It's so easy," Ken says, voice encouraging. "Oh! We could go see if there are some skates nearby and I could show you how to do it."

With this much ice around, it can't be too hard to find another pair.

Even though Ken says it with so much confidence, Vash looks nothing but, as his eyes keep sliding to the skates strapped to the other's feet. But he is clearly too polite to decline ...

"Oh ... Alright, if you're sure!"

Cautiously, Vash is going to try and pick the most stable looking part of the ice to step one foot on, and then sliding the other, when it seems to hold his weight - he is going to just stand there, arms balanced on either side of him, looking a little like a scarecrow.

Rorschach knew how to ice-skate. He'd grown up in the snowy winters of New York, so at some point in his past he had learned. That didn't mean he was about to engage in anything that might actually be fun, so there he stood on the shoreline, watching some blonde idiot zoom around.

(Hadn't he already met this idiot? Was there two village idiots? Were they brothers, given how similar in appearance they were?)

He wondered what Ken was doing out there. Skating around was only going to drain his energy faster. Plus if he landed on the ice at any point, he ran the very real risk of getting hurt.

It's maybe a bit weird that someone is just loitering at the shoreline and watching, especially someone that looks like Rorschach, but this town isn't that normal. And Ken's learned that what he thinks is normal is apparently not normal for a lot of people, so ... Maybe it's not weird at all?

He skates over to the shoreline and raises his hand, giving an enthusiastic wave.

"Hi!"

Rorschach gave a subdued nod of acknowledgment when Ken came over. There couldn't have been two people who were more different in town yet here they were. He looked Ken up and down and then his head cocked to the side like a curious dog as if Ken was a puzzle he was trying to figure out.

"Having fun?" He said in driest tone possible.

Look, Bigby knows better than to get on the ice himself. Even though it seems pretty thick at this point - it's got to be, considering how cold as hell it's been in this place this entire time - he still doesn't trust himself enough to not somehow fall through it at some point. And he's even less inclined to go onto the ice because someone is asking him to. Engaging in a social situation? No, thanks, not his deal--

Except he does recognize the guy on the ice by the time Ken gets closer. Bigby raises an eyebrow, and though he doesn't intend for it to look sceptical, it might look a little bit like that all the same.. Just due to the way the guy's face is, really. It makes every single expression end up looking kind of gruff.

"Feeling better?"

No, apparently he hasn't forgotten the last time he found you out here on the ice, Ken.. Even if this is a total mood shift from that time.

That's just Ken for you, living life from one wildly enthusiastic emotion to another. But the ice isn't so scary or foreboding in the day, and he's in a much better mood all around.

When he sees Bigby, he waves excitedly.

"So much better. I found some skates!"

".. that's great."

It'd probably help if he could say that sort of thing with, you know, some actual enthusiasm and energy in his voice. Or maybe just without dropping that pause right before he says it.

But, you know, at least he isn't actually being rude about it. That's already quite a step by Bigby standards. An attempt is being made?

"I was thinking it seems a little too cold to go ice skating, but you don't seem to be having a whole lot of trouble."

Adrienne doesn't have skates, if she'd seen any in one of the stores she'd ignored them in favour of survival supplies (newbie problems) so when she sees him skating out there-- she's both amused and a little jealous.

She doesn't step onto the ice, even if she's certain of her balance, letting him finish and skate back over there.

"This is honestly something I didn't expect here."

It might be cold but why not enjoy something?

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in lieu of beach (open)

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